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yeah youre right im sure the content of the books are fine but their practice MCAT tests were the least like real MCAT in my experience.
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**2017-2018 URM Medical School Application Thread**
Started by Icantplayspades
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HEY EVERYONE I went ahead and made our class's acceptance thread
Official 2017-2018 URM Acceptance Thread
Just got full tuition Scholarship while prepping for my last interview. My body is not prepared for 2018.
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Congratulations, it's well deserved!!
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We bless God!
That's amazing! Congrats! Can you send a piece of that good luck my way? 😉
God is good!
Wow!! Congrats!! Which school? (if you don't mind)
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I don't think they do much if anything, but they are a nice touch and it is a sign of respect to the person taking the time to interview you. Any warm and fuzzy feelings they have for you when walking into that admissions committee meeting can't hurt 😉
I think it depends on the school. Some schools like Jefferson and GW love students to praise them so it probably doesn’t hurt, but isn’t needed. I didn’t send any for IU. They interview tons of people, I don’t think it matters much.
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I think it depends on the school. Some places explicitly ask you NOT to send thank you notes. Other places are all about demonstrated interest, and thank you notes can be part of that. I think in most cases, it's just a small polite gesture that won't hurt you but won't help that much either.
Thank you so much 🙂
Indeed He is. I was having a pretty **** winter period, with personal stuff e.t.c and this literally erased all that in an instant.
Thank you, it was USC
Wow! Congratulations! I was not brave enough to apply to any CA schools. I heard they are pretty hard to get into for an OOS applicant (and even for instate). Good job! I have acceptances and am hoping to receive a future acceptance with a scholarship. Did they offer the scholarship at the same time as you were notified of your acceptance?
Did you use TBR for all subjects? I'm looking into using the old TBR for C/P content and using only the passages for B/B
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I'll throw in my advice for MCAT. Sorry for the upcoming long paragraphs, but I'm all about giving people the best advice I can give.
I used Examkrackers and I swear by it. I bought both EK and TBR (spent way too much money too lol), but I found TBR very dense and not enjoyable to do (as much as studying can be enjoyable). I think that EK covers everything (except psych and soc) very well and isn't boring to read. It is also significantly cheaper than TBR - however TBR does have a lot more passages, so that would be something to consider.
As far as psych and soc, I would definitely recommend just using the Princeton review psych and soc book (it's the only good thing from PR imo) and the Khan Academy notes. If you google khan academy notes for mcat then click the first result and use the Lazy OCD version. Basically someone took 300 pages of notes from every single KA video on psych and soc and then someone condensed everything down to less than 100 pages by taking out stuff that isn't tested and taking out unnecessary details. I first went through the entire PR book to familiarize myself with P/S which took a few days and it was relatively fast and a nice break from hard sciences lol and then I went through every page of the 100 page guide and wrote it all down and highlighted and annotated as I needed and this took me about 5 or 6 hours for 4 or 5 days and I finished the whole guide. Anything that can be on the MCAT for P/S is covered by this guide - it's just a matter of you memorizing the names of scientists, theories, and experiments for some questions about applying certain theories and concepts to passages.I then just used AAMC materials for review and ended up with a 130 on P/S. I only took Soc 100 freshman year in college and tested out of psych with a 4 on the AP test.
For CARS, I liked the EK book because it gave some great advice and tactics which made cars not seem as bad from the very beginning. I ended up with a 128 on cars. I wish I had done more practice passages from AAMC, I just ran out of time and motivation and probably didn't do 150+ which might've made my score increase. The bottom line is CARS is something you have to work on from the very beginning and your score slowly slowly increases - mine started at a 123 on my first AAMC practice test. Don't read random stuff like papers and articles in hope of increasing your score because as much as cars is about increasing your comprehension, its also about answering the questions and you can only get legit questions from AAMC, so spend your time on AAMC passages and questions after you finish the EK CARS book, it's pretty short overall and only takes about a week in total to get through (I did a chapter every 2 or 3 days).
Finally, the most important thing not matter what books you use to study is AAMC material. About a month out from your exam you should ONLY being using AAMC material. They full lengths and a half length and ton and tons of practice questions - I would recommend just buying the complete set and also the flash cards. These are questions written by the people who make the MCAT and are the absolute best material to study from and test yourself on. Take a FL and then review every single question and understand why you got things wrong and work through them again.
My last word of advice is spend MORE time on the stuff you hate and don't understand. I had a horrible experience with physics in school (I got an A both semesters, but seriously didn't understand anything) and I was never amazing with gen chem (got B's both semesters). So I didn't put full effort into to those subjects when studying and ended up with a 125 on the exam. While this wasn't horrible a 5 point gap in between my highest and lowest score probably raised some eyebrows and maybe even kept me from some reaches on my application. If I had spent just a little more time going over the physics and chemistry stuff I didn't understand I probably could've added 2 or 3 points to both C/P and B/B.
Good luck on your retake!
Shameless plug time... Make sure to join our fb group www.facebook.com/groups/MinoritiesinMedicine/ (New address, same page!). I am happy to say that we are going to be announcing our first giveaway on MLK day tomorrow! So if you know any minority premed thinking about the MCAT make sure to share our page with them. Also, for those that got in this cycle, we have medical students that contribute to our page and are always a post away with any questions that you may have about the next part of your journey(med school!). Not only that, everyone that posts on this SDN thread has a voice that I think needs to be shared as there are so few of us even applying to medical school. Y'all are amazing and should share your experiences. For those of you still waiting to hear back, we have contributors that were in your shoes and can give you advice. If you do end up having to reapply, we review personal statements and essays and can help guide y'all through the application process. I know y'all are getting tired of us plugging the page from time to time but as we grow, I can see the positive impact having a network of us has had.
So I needed to get a great MCAT score because of my low GPA so I gave myself 5 months to really build everything from the bottom up. You at least need 3-4 months with the TBR books in all honesty because of the dense nature of their material but if you really grind through those books your mind is prepared for the way the MCAT wants you to think.
So people have said you can use the old books for the passages but I havent gone through the old books to know enough about them. I love all the small details provided in the TBR books and my confidence was extremely high because of TBR. I also used the psych/soc but honestly wasn't worth it just go through the 300 page document and try to memorize as much as you can. I scored 100th percentile on this section from a mix of next step passages from their practice exams, reading through TBR (least helpful) and watching EVERY KA video and the 300 page document.
ALSO PLEASE use the next step exams as they were the closest to the real thing in my opinion. and they deflate your scores so dont worry about that. highest I ever got on Next Step was like 511 and the highest I ever got on TPR was 503. Do not use TPR exams as they seemed like all fact based instead of reasoning. I wouldn't know what advice to give you on CARS as I didn't prepare enough. Like the other poster said if you know you are weak in a subject then make sure you dedicate time to it...I can honestly say those horrible days increased my score significantly.
Good luck and try to enjoy the studying 😉
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Does anyone else wish they could forward time? I am sooo impatient to start med school later this year. I'm almost bursting with excitement heh 😀
Also, MCAT is very important but it's not everything. Personal statement, secondaries, ECs and letters of rec got me some IIs...certainly not my MCAT (which was a retake). I guess what I'm trying to say is...don't lose hope! I'm a 4th time reapplicant and I finally got in!
Also, MCAT is very important but it's not everything. Personal statement, secondaries, ECs and letters of rec got me some IIs...certainly not my MCAT (which was a retake). I guess what I'm trying to say is...don't lose hope! I'm a 4th time reapplicant and I finally got in!
Random interjection: I got into medical school.
Someone read my application, spoke with me, and actually let me in. I'm at a weird place in life at the moment where the gravity of what I did hasn't hit me, but I feel really blessed overall. It's been a journey and a constant uphill battle. I stay broke & on the verge of eviction while I support difficult & non-supportive family, so I honestly feel that if I can do it ANYONE can. I believe in all of you, just as much as I believe in myself and those I love.
I don't post on here much, but it's been inspiring reading your stories, concerns, and advice.
Someone read my application, spoke with me, and actually let me in. I'm at a weird place in life at the moment where the gravity of what I did hasn't hit me, but I feel really blessed overall. It's been a journey and a constant uphill battle. I stay broke & on the verge of eviction while I support difficult & non-supportive family, so I honestly feel that if I can do it ANYONE can. I believe in all of you, just as much as I believe in myself and those I love.
I don't post on here much, but it's been inspiring reading your stories, concerns, and advice.
Yes, me too! Everyone thinks I'm crazy. And I'm sure next year when I'm studying anatomy I'll look back on this and be like...why tho? But right now, I'm really excited for medical school.
I feel like this process has taught me that your MCAT score is probably the most important factor in deciding whether you get accepted, no matter how "holistic" a school says their review process is (whatever holistic means to an admissions committee).
Agreed. I wish schools would just admit it so I could stop wasting my time (and money lol)
One of the schools I applied to said they have a very holistic application review when I visited when last April for a diversity day. Well, with that "holistic" review comes a minimum MCAT score, which I didn't know about until I applied. One woman in the office of diversity e-mailed me asking if I was going to retake the exam and I was like, no. Rejected a week later back in July.
I'm like, don't say you're holistic if you have a minimum MCAT score needed to even get the secondary. That's false advertisement.
It really is like that lmfaoooooo. That’s why I laugh when Northwestern advertises it. You know damn well you aren’t holistic until you’re a minority with a score above a 30 on the old MCAT.One of the schools I applied to said they have a very holistic application review when I visited when last April for a diversity day. Well, with that "holistic" review comes a minimum MCAT score, which I didn't know about until I applied. One woman in the office of diversity e-mailed me asking if I was going to retake the exam and I was like, no. Rejected a week later back in July.
Also that smiley you used is everything. It reminds me of that yeti/big foot/orangutan gif that makes a puzzled face. Idk how many times I’ve made this look
Northwestern advertises that they are holistic? Who do these people think they are fooling?? The holistic part only comes into play in terms of who they send secondaries too, once they have our money "holistic" goes out the window lol
They do. That’s the sad part
Well to be fair, I received a fee waiver from them, and my mcat is below their average.
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Does being a URM w/ 30+ MCAT really make you stand out to top private schools like NW?
No. My ECs do, as well as my personal statement, secondaries, interviews, etc. Nevertheless, I agree with others in here that the mcat is very important. That was one of the major differences between my first cycle and this cycle.
Tbh that seems pretty holistic to me considering the caliber of NW and their average stats. They sent me a letter after I took the MCAT that said I was competitive there if I had at least a 505 and 3.2 cGPA. I agree completely, that MCAT and GPA probably shouldn't be the end all be all for med school admissions, but schools have to put the cut off somewhere and I think a 505 or even a 509 (30) is a fair cut off for URMs considering their circumstances.
It doesn't make you standout, but it might you nab an II if you have the GPA + EC + essays to help round out your application.
You have an LM of 72.5...so I'm sure you had a high GPA to offset whatever "low" MCAT score you had. With a LM of 72.5 I'm sure that would open up a ton of doors regardless.
Can you clarify what you mean by “I think a 505 or even a 509 (30) is a fair cut off for URMs considering their circumstances”?
I don't think a 505 is even that low. I would have been grateful for a 505 score. I have test taking anxiety so the MCAT was really hard for me, also a lot of personal things were going on in my life at the time.
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Sure. The average MCAT at NW is 519. Their letter said 505 is above for URMs. I think that this is a realistic cutoff for URMs if they showed a commitment to their community and identity in their application considering how underrepresented some groups are in medicine.
My thing is this --- how can you call yourself holistic when you have a hard GPA/MCAT cutoff? That's what doesn't make sense to me. If you were truly holistic you wouldn't throw applications out the door because a person's score isn't at a certain standard. That's what doesn't make sense to me. Yeah, I get medical school admissions is competitive but be honest about how you select people for secondaries. It would save some students a lot of money and also save people from having false hope. 
I know a southern Top-10 medical school that accepted an applicant with a 499 and their median is a 517 or whatever. When I think of holistic, I think of schools like that. Not ones that give cutoffs. That doesn't align with being holistic, in my opinion.
Hey. I never said I had a "low" MCAT lol
It did, but I am one case among many vastly different cases. It was not just because of my stats. I got super lucky with those doors.
I'm sure that applicant had some absolutely amazing EC's or something to make up for that score though. I agree that having a hard cutoff for screening isn't the best idea. When I say cutoff, I don't mean a hardline "your app is out if you don't meet X", I meant more like if you have X MCAT and X GPA your app will be more successful here.
I think it’s the wording. Because they claim to look at all aspects, but it’s conditional. It’s either you’re holistic or not. Because chances are if you’re scoring a 509, you also have a chance to get into other schools as well that aren’t NW and 509 is their bare minimum. It doesn’t matter what else you have if that isn’t there.
My friend did her undergrad there and the diversity told her to not bother applying with her score, but she’s welcome to. She didn’t receive an interview there but did at schools like University of Chicago, University of Washington, Medical College of Wisconsin and etc. She scored a 502 or 503 and attends UIC now.
I understand what you're saying. I guess in my opinion holistic should only go so far. When you're getting down to the 50th percentile for MCAT scores I think the question of can this student handle the rigor of medical comes into question, but I guess holistic processes makes sure that the students down there have a chance to explain themselves. I think we can all agree this process is stressful and crazy and we're all ready for it to be over lol
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For what it’s worth, my 516 wasn’t holistic enough for Northwestern either. I got the secondary fee waiver, though, so I can’t really be mad. Lol
Got you, thanks for explaining that!
Did you apply early? ECs lit?
ehh its whatever at this stage...got an acceptance so I'm happy!
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